Off the Hook (5 page)

Jessie closed her eyes as Kate went on.

“But I’m here now and I have no plan to leave.” She waited until Jessie opened her eyes again. “Can I be perfectly blunt without offending you?”

A half shrug was all she got in response.

“Paul sent me to do a job and I’m going to work my butt off while I’m here, but make no mistake: I work for the Foster Group, not the O’Donnells. If Paul didn’t think he was going to own this place in the next couple of months—or at the very least benefit from it—he never would have sent me.”

“Then I hope you don’t mind me being blunt, too,” Jessie said. “But the only way your boss or anyone else is going to get this place is if they rip it out of our cold dead hands.”

It was exactly what Kate expected her to say. From the second they’d started touring the place, Jessie’s face had been awash with a look of utter happiness, so it was crystal clear her loyalty to the O’Donnells ran deep and she’d do whatever needed to be done to get the place back up and running. And while Kate admired that, she’d also had the chance to go over the entire listing in the red binder while she was down in her cabin. She knew how much work was needed to bring the place up to snuff and had a pretty good idea how much it was going to cost, and if the O’Donnells couldn’t afford to hire staff, there was no way they were going to be able to come up with enough money to pay the taxes by the first of July.

But if Jessie wanted to live in her dream world awhile longer, Kate wouldn’t deny her that. In fact, if things worked out, Jessie might still have a job here when Kate took over, but they had months to go before either one of them needed to start worrying about that. What mattered now was getting the work done and getting it done together, so, to that end, Kate did what she always did.

She smiled and nodded.

“Let’s both hope it doesn’t come to that. And just so you know, I’m not here to sabotage anything or screw things up to make anything worse or harder, because regardless of how this all turns out, that wouldn’t serve either of us very well, would it?”

“No, but it’s sure nice to hear you say it.”

“Besides,” Kate went on, “if you’re right, and the Buoys ends up staying with the O’Donnells, then at least I’ll get to enjoy the next few months away from the office and out of those bloody heels.”

“And what about Liam?”

“Well,” Kate said, laughing, “I’m guessing it’s going to be good and awkward for a little while, but I’m not looking to turn this into any kind of drama. I’ve worked hard to get where I am with the Foster Group, and I’m not about to let some dipshit from my past screw things up now.”

“Dip—” Jessie sputtered, but Kate just grinned.

“Sorry.” She wasn’t, and she was pretty sure Jessie knew it, too. “Are we good?”

It took a second, but finally Jessie’s head bobbed in a slow nod. “Yeah, I think we’re good.”

“Excellent. So what do we do first?”

“We eat.”

“Thank God.” Kate pressed her hands flat against her stomach, thankful it hadn’t starting growling out loud yet. “Whatever you’re making smells amazing.”

“Nothing fancy, just stew.”

For the first time since arriving, Kate winced. “Oh God, is cooking part of the job?”

“Yes and no. Once the season starts and the lodge opens, we’ll have a chef, hopefully, but during the off season, whoever’s here takes a turn in the kitchen.”

“Then I should probably warn you that cooking’s not exactly my forte. I can cook, but it’s pretty standard stuff. I’ve come to believe that if God wanted me to spend any amount of time in the kitchen, there wouldn’t be restaurants on every corner.”

“Restaurants.” Jessie snorted as she handed Kate bowls and a fistful of cutlery to set out. “I didn’t realize how much I missed those until I moved back to the mainland.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Look around; it’s not like there’s a Timmy’s or a Red Lobster close by.” Jessie chuckled softly, but there was a subtle kind of edge to it. “So you learn to get used to what’s on the menu here.”

“Sure, but you must leave once in a while, don’t you?” Kate’s hand froze as she set down the first bowl. “Wait. You
do
leave here once in a while, don’t you?”

“ ’Course. After Jimmy shut this place down a few years back, I lived in the West End.”

“No, I mean when you worked here before. Didn’t you leave once in a while?”

“Sure.”

That didn’t sound convincing at all. “How often? Like every couple weeks? Every month?”

“I don’t know.” Jessie’s shoulder lifted in a slow shrug. “I guess it must’ve been—”

Footsteps sounded across the lobby floor and in through the door behind Kate, but she refused to let her gaze do anything more than flicker over Liam when he stopped at the end of the bar. He’d ditched the rain gear and was dressed in plain old blue jeans and a long-sleeved gray Henley shirt that fit him…
ahem
…rather nicely.

Whatever.

“—every year or so.”

That brought Kate’s focus back. “You only left here once a year? Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” Jessie laughed as she set water glasses on the table. “Up until a few years back, Helijets weren’t as readily available as they are now, which meant coming in by boat or seaplane, and water and I don’t really get along, so…Besides, there was nothing on the mainland that I needed, so why leave?”

“I don’t know, maybe—” Before Kate could finish, Liam brushed past her with a nudge and a slight shake of his head.

“I’ll get the pot, Jess,” he said, loud enough to drown out Kate. “You get the hot pads and biscuits.”

Uh…okay
. With no idea what she’d done or said, Kate finished setting out the cutlery, then stood behind one of the chairs, twisting her fingers around the spindles. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Nope, we’re good. Have a seat.”

Kate waited for Jessie to sit first, then she took the chair next to her. Seconds ticked in silence as they filled their bowls and dug in. A couple of times Kate smiled at Jessie over a mouthful of stew, but Liam never even looked up.

After what seemed like half an age, Jessie chuckled.

“Thank God,” she said. “I’ve been worried this was going to be awkward.”

Kate snickered quietly, partly because it was funny and partly because, as much as she wished it didn’t, seeing Liam again—and being so close to him—sent her insides into a frenzy.

She didn’t want to feel that way; in fact, she tried like hell to squash it, but it wouldn’t be ignored, and she laid that blame right at Liam’s feet because it was his eyes that had done it to her again. Sure, it had only been maybe a fraction of a second when he’d first seen her earlier, but in that fraction, his eyes had sparkled exactly the same way they had back in Vegas.

And, damn it, that’s all it took.

It wasn’t as if she’d had a man harem since Vegas, but she hadn’t been celibate, either, and even though there was one guy who’d started tossing around ideas of them having a future together, he’d never once looked at Kate the way Liam had. And while it seemed ridiculous, that’s what Kate wanted again—someone who looked at her like she was the most amazing thing in the world. Or at least in his world.

Hadn’t happened in ten years, and going by the way Liam was making a point of not looking at her now, it probably wasn’t going to happen ever again.

Time to do what she was good at: small talk. It had become one of her specialties; she could cover just about any topic, from the weather to sports to the current crisis in the Middle East, but all of that was before she had to do it with her ex-husband.

“Ex-husband”: What a strange word.

It sounded crazy, she knew, because they’d been divorced for so long, but in all that time, whenever she thought about him—and, yeah, okay, she still thought about him once in a while—she never thought of him as her ex-husband. Of course, she’d never really thought of him as her husband, either, because the ink had hardly dried on their marriage certificate before he bolted.

She’d never wondered what it would be like to see him in person again, because it had never occurred to her that it would happen. So the fact that she was sitting across the table from him now, and that she’d basically be living with him for at least the next few months, yeah,
that
was weird.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to pretend he wasn’t there. That’d work, right? He hadn’t said a word since they’d sat down anyway, so Kate focused on Jessie, pulling all sorts of information from her, most of which had to do with the Buoys, but every now and then a tidbit about Liam and his brothers came out.

“Mr. O’Donnell built this place himself?”

“Jimmy, yeah. He built the main lodge, and then once the boys were big enough, they helped build the cabins and do whatever else needed doing.”

“Wow.” Kate didn’t even try to hide how much that impressed her. “Well, Mr. O’Donnell sure picked a beautiful spot to build on. Are there any other people or businesses here?”

“Nope. The only other living things on or around Welch Island either swim, fly, or walk on all fours. There was talk of a temporary mill going in on the west side five or six years ago, but thankfully that was shot down, because it’s all old-growth forest here.”

“What do the other two do now? Ronan and Finn?”

“Ro’s a laborer for the city of Calgary, and Finn was a heavy-duty mechanic up in Fort Mac until the plummeting oil prices sent a tidal wave of panic over everything.”

“Laid off?” Kate sighed when Jessie nodded. “Been there myself a few times; it’s not a lot of fun. Do he and Ronan get down here very often?”

“Finn’ll be back tomorrow, but Ro…well…it’s not easy for him to get time off.”

The sound of Liam snorting, as quiet as it was, made them both look, and even though he lifted his head only long enough to roll his eyes, neither he nor Jessie said anything else about it and Kate didn’t ask.

“And Mrs. O’Donnell?”

Neither Jessie nor Liam looked at her, but both forks froze in their bowls as the earlier awkwardness immediately shot up another notch. Or six.

“Sorry,” Kate scrambled. “Is that…I—”

Jessie shook her head slightly as she wiped her napkin across her mouth. “Maggie left when the boys were little.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” A normal husband would have shared that with his wife, but clearly there’d been nothing normal about Liam and Kate’s marriage. Best thing she could do was steer the conversation back to the lodge. “So tell me how this works. I’ve seen the list of repairs you all sent Paul, but I assume there are other things that didn’t make the list.”

“Yeah,” Jessie laughed. “There are a few things.”

After a quick sip of water, Jessie explained how the general upkeep and maintenance worked and then started rattling off the bigger jobs that needed tackling: giving the three fishing boats much-needed overhauls, reroofing the three guest cabins out by the cove, painting, plumbing upgrades, landscaping…It got to the point where Kate wondered why they didn’t just torch the place and start from scratch.

“We also need to scrub everything down, top to bottom, and get a complete inventory of what’s here, what we can make do with, and what’s going to need replacing.”

Liam swallowed what was in his mouth and pointed his fork at Jessie. “Fish shack first.”

“Roofs first, then the fish shack.”

It didn’t take long for Liam to concede with a slow nod.

“Well, okay, then.” Kate grinned. “What do you want me to start on?”

“I’m not actually sure yet. We were all together here when Ro set up this arrangement with your boss, but then we all had to go home to sort our lives out before we could start here. I had to give notice at work, we all had to figure out what to do with our living arrangements, blah blah blah. Liam and I just got back yesterday.”

There was nothing in Jessie’s voice to hint either way, but that didn’t stop Kate from wondering again if maybe Jessie and Liam were together. If they were, Jessie had taken the news about Kate and him pretty well.

Pushing another smile, Kate glanced around the bar and out toward the lobby. “I’m guessing you’re still a little overwhelmed, then.”

Jessie snorted softly. “Little bit, yeah. So tonight let’s relax, because once we get going tomorrow, it’s not likely we’ll see a day off until the end of the season.”

“Okay. Sounds…uh…great.”

After a second, they both laughed quietly, then Jessie nodded toward Kate’s bowl.

“What do you say after supper we grab a bowl of popcorn and watch a movie in the great room?”

“Sure!” Unless Kate was off her mark, Jessie was the one who called most of the shots around this place, so it’d probably be best to stick close to her.

“What about you?” Jessie asked, tipping her chin toward Liam.

“No thanks.” Lifting his dishes, he pushed back from the table and headed to the kitchen behind the bar, leaving a bubble of silence behind him.

“It’s not you,” Jessie said. “He needs to do his therapy and throwing after dinner.”

Kate nodded as that settled over her. Well over a year since his last game and he was still throwing? Surely he didn’t expect to pitch again, did he?

Apparently he did, because a little while later, when Kate went to refill her water glass, she saw firsthand how determined he was. The kitchen window looked out on the back corner of the yard behind the lodge, and there, under half a dozen dangling trouble lights, stood Liam. From a mound made of snow, wearing clunky grippers over his boots, he stared down at the ground for a second, then slowly went into his windup and hurled the ball into a huge piece of net strung up around what looked like a crudely cut-out home plate.

He seemed to study the now-empty air space the ball had just hummed through, then reached into the bucket behind him and pulled out another ball.

“Finn’ll catch for him when he gets back,” Jessie said, her quiet voice making Kate jump. “But I won’t. Screwed-up arm or not, that boy throws hard.”

“How long does he stay out there?”

“Depends on his arm and his mood.” Giving Kate’s elbow a nudge, Jessie laughed quietly. “I’m guessing he’ll go awhile tonight.”